While reading a few commentaries on today’s passage, I came across one by Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, which said, “This passage plays a key role in the Gospel according to Mark's understanding of why Jesus dies and what his death means.”
That statement got my attention. To read that this passage plays a key role in understanding why Jesus dies and what his death means, according to the Gospel of Mark, said a lot to me. The commentary continued to describe the impact of this particular passage, saying that “It describes the Christian gospel and the community it creates as utterly different from the ‘business as usual’ we encounter all around us.”
Utterly different than the business as usual we normally encounter. The words written by this Professor of New Testament pointed to Mark’s Gospel as saying that the death of Jesus Christ is meant to call his followers to live beyond “business as usual.”
I had to think about that for a while. I mean, just what is “business as usual”?
I’m not sure if you had a chance to read last week Saturday’s paper. Not yesterday’s, but the one from last Saturday where there was an article about how the Mayor of Honolulu is upset with churches because he feels as though churches aren’t doing “their part” to solve the homeless crisis on our island.
I know churches who cook and serve meals for the hundreds of men, women, and families with children who live in various shelters around the island. Then there it was, on that last thought about how churches who serve meals to our homeless brothers, sisters, and children that my ranting stopped in its tracks.
“Exactly what does that mean?” I thought, “What does it mean to serve meals? More to the point; what does it mean to serve?”
I reread the passage, my heart a little more receptive to the message of service, or rather the idea of being a servant, and what I read opened me to just what the author of that particular commentary might have meant.
James and John are fully aware that Jesus is about to enter into the gates of Jerusalem, and if they were paying any attention to what Jesus said in the verses before today’s reading, they would know what’s about to happen. Jesus tells them, in as straightforward a way as he can, “Look! We’re going up to Jerusalem. I will be handed over to the chief priests and the legal experts. They will condemn me to death and hand me over to the Gentiles. They will ridicule me, spit on me, torture me, and kill me.”
How much more candid can he be?
The two disciples have a request, however, and a rather bold request at that.
To be honest, I kind of admire the two disciples for taking the chance they did. They knew what Jesus’ mission was; to confront the temple elite. For them to ask to be Jesus’ number one and number two in this battle probably took a lot of courage. However, Jesus didn’t see it that way. Instead, John and James as well as the rest of the twelve disciples receive a lesson in what it means to place themselves last.
In other words, what it means to be the servant, not the ones being served.
In Jesus’ day a servant was considered one of the lowliest of all lives; even lower than the sheep herder. Servants didn’t own property, nor did they have a place in society. They were owned by those whom they served and had to do as their owners said or they would face consequences ranging from a severe beating to imprisonment or even death.
However, a good servant, one who was exceptional in their tasks and in understanding the needs and wants of those they served, usually lived a good life. These servants developed a personal relationship with their owners and learned to anticipate the needs and wants of those whom they served. These were the servants who were welcome to eat what their owners did, accompany them on their daily travels, and often were rewarded with a better place to live for them and their families.
These were the servants who didn’t live as though business was usual. These were the servants who found their rewards in life by putting themselves last and those they served above all else.
James and John were looking to hold places of power and prestige within the community Christ had begun. Jesus reminds them, and the rest of the disciples, that it is exactly that kind of hierarchy which Jesus has come to stand against. Jesus tells them that those who hold the true power, that which will be given through the all-encompassing grace of God, are those who place themselves as the servant of all people. He tells them this with the hopes that through the life he has shared with them so far, they can see that the kind of servant Jesus is talking about is the one who finds a way to invite and include, not the ones who divide and exclude.
I heard a story this past week about a teacher and her 4th grade class.
This teacher was thinking about different ways she could help her 9 and 10 year-olds with their writing skills while at the same time introduce them to being involved in wider community activities. The idea she came up with was for her students to become pen pals with a local hospital for children with special needs. She introduced the pen pal writing project to her kids, who immediately got excited about the idea of writing letters to children their age who were in need of a friend.
The letters were simple and included words which described how they looked, what they enjoyed doing, what their families were like, what kinds of foods they loved, and other things children their age would write about. The responses from those to whom they wrote were the same; descriptions of how they looked, their different ages, various activities which they enjoyed.
As the school year progressed, so did the desire to continue writing letters to their new friends. They were delighted every time they got responses from their new pals and would read their letters with joy and a unique sense of awareness.
Then one day, as it was inevitably going to happen, the 4th graders rose up in unity and requested, if not demanded, they meet their pen pals. The teacher didn’t know what to do. The children her class was writing to were for the most part on the lower scale of their disabilities. These were mostly children who were wheelchair bound and unable to accomplish even the most basic tasks most of us take for granted.
But the class was persistent, so the teacher agreed to inquire and see what, if anything, could be worked out. Much to her surprise, the staff person from the hospital she was working with had said that something could most definitely be worked out. So they planned to have a meet and greet between the two groups at the hospital.
The teacher didn’t know if her children had ever seen people their age in such conditions, so she felt it necessary to prepare them. She told them there would be kids in wheelchairs who would not be able to speak. She told them there would be children their age who had to use helmets to protect their heads in case they fell down. She told them that a lot, if not all, of the kids they were going to visit would look, speak, smell, sound, dress, and in many other ways be different than they are.
Those 4th graders didn’t seem to mind those differences at all and it would seem they had made up their minds to go to see their new friends.
The day had come for them to visit the hospital and the teacher was nervous, but she had to put her trust in her kids. They arrived at the hospital and were taken to the room where they would meet, and before anyone had a chance to introduce anyone else, those 4th graders took one look around that room and ran, literally ran to their pen pals. It would seem that each one of those kids instinctively knew who their pen pal was, and all without ever seeing a picture of them.
She overheard one of the girls tell her pen pal that her letters made her “feel pretty because in the letter you said I was pretty.” She heard one of the boys talk about last week’s baseball game and how their favorite team did. It was as though these kids had been friends for a very long time. And you know what, in a way they have been.
What was most amazing to the teacher was that not one of her students, not one of them, recoiled, refused, or in any other way did not want to be in that room. Each one of those kids, in both groups, accepted one another for who they were and where they found themselves on life’s journey.
The story gets a little better, and this is the part I really want us to listen to.
When it was time for them all to take a group picture, the teacher and hospital staff did their best to assemble all those excited kids. Some would walk off, others would turn their bodies just before the picture was to be taken. You know, business as usual for 9 and 10 year-olds.
Then, just as everyone finally got settled and the picture was about to be snapped, one of the students ran away from the group. The teachers and staff call out to him, and his only reply was to tell them to wait. When he returned to the group he was holding a paper towel. He reached around to his pen pal, his little arm stretched out, and softly touched the towel to his new friend’s mouth, wiping the drool that was coming down his chin.
His tiny voice echoed through that quiet room as he said, “You have to look good for the picture, so I want you to look good.”
In that moment every adult came to understand what every child already knew. It doesn’t matter who you are, or in what kind of life you find yourself. It is our duty as God’s children to serve others. It is our calling as Christians to be a servant to all.
This little boy, this child, gave something to everyone in that room that day. He gave them the gift to understand what Mark’s Gospel was trying to say 2000 years ago. It’s in being a servant to others we give of our lives in the hopes that the lives we touch will be liberated from whatever their oppressions might be.
This is what Mark’s Gospel says is the reason Jesus dies. This is what Jesus hopes to help us understand in the giving of his life: that God, through Jesus' ultimate act of service, will free people from the things that hold them back from experiencing joy, hope, peace, and love, and restore them to membership in the community that is God’s realm.
God is with us all. Amen.
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